Tesla To Open First San Francisco Store Next Week

Tesla plans to open its first store in San Francisco next week at the corner of Van Ness Avenue and O’Farrell Street. At 65,000 square-feet, it will be its largest store to date, and it replaces a Bentley and Lamborghini dealership, which moved next door. The EV firm plans to hold a stupendous opening next Friday.

First Tesla store in San Francisco

While Tesla has the most stores and galleries in its home state of California, it doesn’t have any stores, service stations or Superchargers in San Francisco. So finally the company has chosen to give the city its first showroom. Tesla will use the store to sell its Model X, Model S and upcoming Model 3 electric cars and will likewise utilize the space to teach customers about electric car innovation. Moreover, clients can have their cars serviced there.

It seems likely that when (and if) Tesla and SolarCity combine, the company will offer solar panels and home batteries at the San Francisco store as well. Recently, the Elon Musk-led company declared its plans to take over SolarCity for $2.6 billion, dependent upon a vote by shareholders of both companies and regulatory approval.

Unlike most car makers, Tesla has continued to work its own stores so it can have employees to educate customers about their electric cars and market them well. Tesla’s thinking behind educating customers about its electric cars is because the innovation is relatively new, and potential clients need to understand how the tech functions. A few states with potent auto dealership associations have hindered Tesla’s direct sales model.

Big plans to expand its network

Tesla has embraced a huge expansion plan to grow its presence globally in the form of stores, service locations and charging infrastructure. During the Model 3 event, Musk said the company plans to double the number of stores and service stations to 441, up from 215, before the end of 2017. Over the same timeframe, it plans to double the number of Superchargers to 7,200 and quadruple the number of destination chargers to 15,000.

On Wednesday during the earnings call, the company also revealed plans to add new retail stores every four days for the rest of the year. The EV firm is spending vigorously this year to grow its store network and to get the Model 3 cars to customers before the end of 2017.

A week ago, Tesla flaunted its enormous battery production line outside of Reno, Nevada. The plant still is just 14% finished now, but when complete, it is expected to extend over 10-million-square-feet and produce enough batteries for 500,000 cars every year by 2018.

Author: Aman JainAman is MBA (Finance) with an experience on both Marketing and Finance side. He has worked as a Risk Analyst for AIR Worldwide, and is currently leading VeRa FinServ, a Financial Research firm. Favorite pastimes include watching science fiction movies, reviewing tech gadgets, playing PC games and cricket.